This invention relates to mechanical reed musical instruments such as clarinets, saxophones and the like and more particularly to a device for supporting a reed relative to the mouthpiece of the instrument.
In a typical mechanical reed musical instrument, energy in a steady air stream is converted to acoustical energy by virtue of the air stream being throttled by an air actuated vibrating reed, with the acoustical output usually being coupled to a resonant air column to produce musical sounds.
In the design of these type instruments it has long been recognized that the effects of vibrating reeds are important in tone production and moreover, the manner in which the reed is clamped relative to the mouthpiece significantly modifies the reed behavior.
One of the most important goals in the design of a reed for the above type musical instruments is to reduce the tendancy of the reed to vibrate in accordance with its own internal resonant modes, and thus allow the reed to function more faithfully in accordance with the air column resonances of the instrument. In this context, the construction and arrangement of the device for securing the reed relative to the mouthpiece of the instrument is extremely important since it is an integral part of the vibrating system. For example, these reed holding devices, commonly referred to as "ligatures", must permit the reed to vibrate freely while absorbing and dissipating unwanted resonances in the body of the reed, yet allow the reed to swell and shrink from moisture flow without undue constriction of the reed and resultant distortion of the reed body. In addition, the ligature should enable the player to easily adjust the degree of holding pressure upon the reed body with a minimum of effort.
Early type ligatures were in the form of a cord-like material which was wrapped around the reed and the mouthpiece to attach the former to the latter. It can be appreciated that this was extremely inconvenient and cumbersome to do and could only be done with the expenditure of a great deal of time. As a result, metal, and more recently, plastic, clamps or ligatures became popular since they could be designed to quickly remove the reed from the mouthpiece in the event that the latter had to be replaced or changed. However, it is well recognized that the metal ligature suffers from a lack of accurate tonal quality when compared to cord-like, or fabric, ligatures. This is largely due to the fact that metal ligatures tend to reflect a great portion of the vibrant energy from the reed back into the reed and thus provide a relatively low damping of mechanical resonances and a poor resistive termination for the standing waves that are generated in the reed during exitation as compared to the cord or fabric type ligatures. As a result, the metal ligature effects both pitch and amplitude of the notes played which, of course, is highly undesirable. Also, a cane reed, which is one of the most popular type of reeds now in use, undergoes significant growth and shrinkage during a performance as a result of the constantly changing moisture content within its body. With a metal ligature, its lack of compliance causes the reed to be constricted in its growth therefore causing it to distort to the point where its function is detrimentally effected. As a result the cane reed would become totally unacceptable for future play after this distortion did occur.
Although several other ligature designs, such as those utilizing fabric, plastic, or rubber, have been proposed to alleviate the deficiencies of the metal ligature discussed above, these designs present a very specific mechanical impedance to the energy from the reed and thus suffer from an inability to adequately damp and terminate all of the mechanical resonances and standing waves that are generated in the reed during exitation. As a result the reed is caused to vibrate more in accordance with its own internal resonant modes and thus functions less faithfully in accordance with the air column resonances of the instrument, resulting in less than optimum tonal quality, intonation, evenness of scale, and playing ease.